"Thrones" co-creator and co-showrunner Dan Weiss told EW.com that nearly an hour of extra material will be included over the course of the season.

“There’s almost another full episode’s worth of extra minutes spread across the season,” Weiss said. “One of the great liberties with HBO is we’re not forced to come in at a specific time. We can’t be under 50 minutes or over 60, but that gives us a lot of flexibility.”

It's understandable that the series would be expanded for its upcoming run. The third season of "Game of Thrones" is based on the first half of "A Storm of Swords," the third novel from George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series. At 992 pages, it is one of the lengthiest books of the series.

Season 3 of "Game of Thrones" kicks off March 31.

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